The Eastern Standstill
by tere moto the sentry
Summary: One shot. In the aftermath of an earthquake, Dib shares a few last words with a part of him that it is time to let go of. Rated T to be safe.


**Author's Note:** Happy birthday to me! Here's my birthday present to my dear fans. By the way, this is not intended as a ZaDR, regardless of how it may seem at times.

**Disclaimer:** Invader ZIM and related stuff belong to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon.

The Eastern Standstill

The sun was an incredibly compassionate thing. Regardless of what lie on Earth, no matter how many demolished houses were strewn across the landscape and how many broken souls sent their agonized cries into the atmosphere, the sun always rose. It ascended proudly in the sky each morning and cast its rays upon each tearstained face.

And as Dib's hands worked their way deep into his pockets, he realized he had never before thought of the sun that way. And it only made sense to. He had found himself many a time before drawing up the most long-winded and vibrant philosophies about the stars in the night sky, and wasn't the sun a star as well?

The boy shivered slightly in the winter morning. It wasn't the most pleasant weather to be outside in, and he didn't know why he kept coming out here every sunrise. But much like the sun itself, he always found himself drawn back by something.

Snow was falling. Another of Mother Nature's empathies. She tucked her beloved Earth in white fleece blankets when it was in pain. Snow concealed glaring destruction. Snow covered blood. Dib tilted his head upwards, and smiled a bit when the flakes dotted his glasses. He wasn't so sure how, but this new morning ritual would temporarily wipe his mind clean of all his troubles. And recently, those numbered quite a few. As if the quake, the ruined city it left behind, and every life lost weren't enough, the surviving citizens floated about wordlessly, cleaning up and rebuilding, with no one wanting to talk about how they felt, no one wanting to fall into each other's arms and cradle one another. All felt that the trauma was best pushed aside, best repressed.

Dib could not have imagined before that his father could be more preoccupied, but now he was. Gaz, however, had oddly enough taken on a very different demeanor. No longer did that eternally agitated scowl smudge her face. It had suddenly been replaced by a blank expression of lightly pressed lips, not unlike the cartoon face on Dib's favorite shirt. Moreover, he could now see his sister's eyes. They had lost their usual squint, and now revealed a slightly more innocent look. Dib remembered with a thin smile how he sometimes forgot what color Gaz's eyes were, even though they were the same as his own. He then mused at how he used to tease himself that she squinted to keep the hellfire in her eyes from spewing out. For in the rare times that she had opened her eyes a little wider, it usually had seemed that such a thing was imminent.

But not this time. Now she constantly looked confused, naïve…like a little child. Rarely did she take on the look of an innocent child. She _was_ a child, but one who had been capable of such hatred that one only sees in some adults.

Gaz's eyes…the city…the _world_ now seemed like an empty void. Everyone the boy saw bore the same vacant, soulless face, and it was rather shocking that he could barely tell people apart anymore. Classmates he had known for years—those who had escaped the collapsing buildings—now looked like the same distant, unresponsive figure, slowly shuffling farther and farther away from reality and towards a destination that perhaps not even they knew.

The thought terrified him sometimes. It woke him in the middle of the night with cold chills fingering his spin. A desolate, withered city with thoughtless shapes marching forth aimlessly. And no amount of zombie movies could have desensitized anyone to this. The chills that horror films produced in him were welcome ones—it was only a movie. This was real. What's more, these zombies were people he once knew.

The sudden irony dawned on him that this city was steadily becoming as Ms. Bitters had so persistently foretold. Not that she was still around to see it. No, the police had found her under an enormous bookcase in the Skool's library. Naturally, school had been cancelled regardless of how many teachers were left and what condition they were in. After the quake, _everyone_ had home matters to attend to.

Everybody was busy most of the time, but everybody came to a point here and there in which they could make no more progress without the help of a professional of some sort who was currently busy with his own affairs. For Dib's family, those points were in the mornings. And each time he felt the pulling need to break free of some norm he felt trapped in, to find some kind of refuge to collect his thoughts. That refuge was the sunrise.

He sighed softly and watched a breath leave him into the January air. With a newfound calmness he surveyed the world before him. He had never really stood on the outskirts of the city; as a matter of fact, he wondered when the last time was that he had left the city at all.

"It's a most peculiar thing, your snow," a voice suddenly said behind him. Dib whirled around to meet the eyes of someone he would normally have been riled up to see. But strangely, it didn't bother him a bit to see Zim.

"We never had such a thing as snow on Irk," the alien continued, "It's like ice, but soft." He studied the gathering white at his feet with a thoughtful gaze Dib had never seen in him before.

A bit puzzled, Dib inquired, "What exactly are you here for?"

Zim glanced up and shrugged. "I needed a break. From the rebuilding and the rewiring and GIR's craziness and the like." He held up his double-gloved and certainly paste-soaked palm to catch a few of the diminutive flakes and watch them melt.

"There's something very different about you," the boy observed aloud.

The Irken straightened his back and looked past Dib. "Yes, well, there is something very different about our lives. Your unfathomable Earth phenomena have succeeded in confounding me yet again, and this time, the phenomenon has uprooted us all. I must give your planet credit for never failing to astound me with its endless variety of bizarre creatures and cataclysmic natural occurrences, but circumstances are becoming intolerable and I'm…" He trailed off and in the same beat looked skyward.

With a sinking feeling, Dib got the message. "You're going home."

Zim exhaled deeply. "Yes," he said quietly. It became clear that he had not only come here for a break.

Very oddly enough, Dib's heart felt heavy.

"Things…won't be the same without you."

Zim looked at him bemused and gave that nonchalant chuckle with that tinge of arrogance that would have before given Dib the urge to punch him. "Of course they won't."

Dib had no idea why he'd ever dream of missing Zim. This was the individual who had plotted so many times before to destroy him, eliminate him and his species, but then…he was also the driving force that constantly and relentlessly pushed him to do his best each and every day to save himself and his species. But overall it was much better that Zim left. Mostly for the world, but also because Zim had taught him enough. It was time to press on without him.

But…could he? The change was so sudden, and with the disaster that had just taken place—

He stared at his once-nemesis sharply. He had an aching desire to join him, to shuttle off through the universe and away from his shattered world, away from his ruined home and earthly troubles—but he_ couldn't_. This planet, _his_ planet, was wounded, and he was needed to help bandage it. This world was so broken and torn, but…it was _home_. He couldn't leave it. He was needed here; he was needed to change something.

And so this, this was…

"Goodbye, Zim."

Zim nodded and turned to head back to his base. But at some point he paused, looked back, and with a shake of the head and a small smile, said the last words Dib would ever hear him say.

"I think the strangest thing about your world is, no matter what disaster occurs on it, it keeps turning."


End file.
